Stuart Kaminsky - Dead of Winter

"Twelve feet," Stella answered.

Danny's fingers played the keys and moved the mouse until the image scrolled down. A second window suddenly appeared.

"Reduce it so we can see both windows," Stella said.

Danny did it. One window was now directly above the other.

"It was night," she reminded him.

Danny created night.

"Was the bathroom light on?" he asked.

Stella pulled out her notes and a small packet of tissues. She flipped through the notes and said, "She slept with the bathroom light on."

"Bathroom light on," Danny said.

And a light yellow glow appeared in the lower window.

"Now the chain from Guista's room to the bathroom," Stella said wiping her nose.

"Chains, chains, chains, chains," Danny said pushing his glasses back on his nose and searching. "Here. Pick a chain."

He scrolled down.

"This one's close to the one he used," Danny said.

"Can you make it hang from Guista's window down to the bathroom?" Stella asked.

"You are definitely coming down with something," he said.

"If he used the chain to lower someone," she said, instead of responding to his comment, "the person would have to be small, brave, and hope that the bathroom window was open."

"Or know that it was open," Danny said.

"Can you put a person at the end of the chain?"

A figure, male, dressed like a ninja, appeared.

"Make him smaller," she said.

Danny made the figure smaller.

"Can you open the window?" she asked.

"How wide was it open?"

She consulted her notes again and came up with, "A little under fourteen inches."

Danny opened the window to scale.

"Narrow," he said. "Should I make our ninja smaller?"

"Sure," she said.

Done.

"By scale, how much would you say he or she weighs now?" asked Stella.

Danny sat back, thought, and said, "Maybe one hundred," he said. "Maximum one hundred and ten."

"And he had to open the window and swing through it," Stella said.

"And he had to get back out through the window with that clearance," said Danny. "An acrobat? Maybe we should be checking on gymnasts and circus acrobats?"

Stella thought and said, "Can you put something into the lower part of the window, where we found the screw hole?"

"Something?"

"A circular piece of metal?"

"How big a circle?"

"Start big, five inch diameter."

Danny searched. An image appeared at the bottom of the bathroom window. A circle.

"Can you make it stand out, perpendicular to the window?" she asked.

"I can try."

He manipulated the circle, give it a three-dimensional hoop look.

They both looked at the chain, the hoop, and the window and came to the same conclusion.

"You going to say it or should I?" he asked.

"Get rid of the ninja," she said.

"Check," said Danny, and the ninja was gone.

"Attach the end of the chain to the hoop," she said.

He was ahead of her and had it done before she had finished his sentence.

"Guista hooked the hoop and then kept pulling till the hoop on the screw came out," said Danny, showing it on screen as they watched. "That's what happened. It also explains why he used a metal chain instead of a rope. A rope would flop in the wind. A chain with a hook would be easier to grab the hoop. And then he lowered whoever killed Alberta Spanio."

"Why couldn't the killer just open the window and climb in?" Stella asked, looking at the computer screen. "Why go through this hoop and chain business? Maybe the killer didn't come through the window."

"Why would someone go through all that to open a window they weren't going to use?" asked Danny.

"Maybe to bring the temperature down below freezing in the bedroom so we couldn't pinpoint time of death?"

"Why do that?"

Stella shrugged.

"Maybe they wanted to make it look as if someone had come through the window," Danny said. "But the snow screwed that up."

"We're still missing something," Stella said, followed by a sneeze.

"Cold," he said. "Maybe flu."

"Allergies," Stella answered. "We've got to find Guista and get some answers out of him."

"If he's still alive," said Danny.

"If he's still alive," Stella repeated.

"I've got some Vitamin C tablets in my kit," Danny said. "Want one?"

"Make it three," she said.

Danny stood, still looking at the image on the screen.

"What?" Stella asked.

"Maybe we're wrong," he said. "Maybe somebody did go down that chain."

"The little man the clerk saw with Guista," she said.

"Back to square one?" said Danny.

"Database?"

"Looking for the little man," said Danny. "Let's go home and start again in the morning."

Normally, Stella would have said something like, "Go ahead, I have a few things to clean up." But not tonight. She was one large ache, and home sounded good to her.

They both went home. When they came in the next morning, they would have information that threatened to throw their theory out of the window.

The two black kids who stepped out of the bakery truck, hands in the air, couldn't have been more than fifteen.

The police officers, one a black woman named Clea Barnes, kept their weapons leveled at the driver. Her partner, Barney Royce, was ten years older than Clea and not nearly as good a shot. He was and always had been just average on the range. Fortunately, in his twenty-six years in uniform, he had never had to shoot at anyone. Clea, however, with four years in, had already shot three perps. None had died. Barney figured punks and drunks took Clea for an easy mark. They were wrong.

"Step away from the truck," Barney ordered.

"We didn't do nothin'," the driver said in a surly manner both police officers well recognized.

"No," said Clea. "You didn't do nothing. You did something. Where'd you get this truck?"

The two boys, both wearing black winter coats and no caps or hats, looked at the truck as if they had not noticed it before.

"This truck?" said the driver as Barney moved forward to check both of the boys for weapons. They were clean.

"That truck," Clea said patiently.

"Friend let us drive it," the driver said.

"Tell us about your friend," said Barney.

"A friend," said the driver with a shrug.

"Name, color," said Clea.

"White dude," said the driver. "Didn't catch his name."

"You didn't know his name but he let you take the truck," said Barney.

"That's right," said the boy.

"One chance," said Clea. "We bring you in, get your prints, check you out, let you walk if you tell us the truth. Right now. No bullshit."

The boy shook his head and looked at his buddy.

The second boy spoke for the first time.

"We were in Brooklyn," he said. "Visiting some friends. On the way to the subway, we saw this big old white guy walking around. Limping around in front of a deli. It wasn't a neighborhood where you'd expect to find a white guy walking around, big guy or not."

"So you decided to rob him?" Barney asked.

"I didn't say that. Besides, while we were talking, a cab pulled up. He got in. We checked out the truck when the cab was gone. Keys were in the truck."

"And you took it?" asked Clea.

"Beats the subway," the first kid said.

"Where was this deli in Brooklyn?" asked Barney.

"Flatbush Avenue," the second kid told them. "J.V.'s Deli."

"Now," said Clea. "Big question that's going to maybe let you walk if you're not wanted for something: What kind of cab was it and what time did the white guy get picked up."

The second boy smiled and said, "One of those car service sedans. Green Cab Number 4304. Picked him up a few minutes after nine."

Aiden had taken her shower, washed her hair, put on her warmest pajamas, and turned on the television in her bedroom. The Daily Show would be on in half an hour. Meanwhile she turned on CNN and lay back with a pad of paper, glancing up from time to time at the news scroll at the bottom of the screen.